Saturday, July 29, 2017

The Replacement of Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff with General John Kelly is Extremely Disturbing

John F. Kelly and President Trump

Reince Priebus. as Donald Trump's chief of staff attempted to serve two masters, Trump himself and the establishment Republican crony elite. This made him terribly inefficient, something that was not a complete negative from a libertarian perspective when there was little in terms of liberty being advanced by the Administration.

If anything, Priebus was a minor plus by blocking the more anti-trade and domestic crackdown instincts of Trump.

With him gone, there is one less brake on the worst Trump instincts.

The Boston Globe's Michael A. Cohen tells us that the new chief of staff, John Kelly, "is unhinged."

From Cohen:

Last week he delivered one of the more unhinged speeches that you will ever hear from a Cabinet secretary. It was a terrifying reminder of the depths this administration will sink to in order to sell its toxic policies...

Kelly jumped out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down. In discussing his agency’s mission, Kelly said this (slightly annotated).

“Make no mistake — we are a nation under attack.”

No, we’re not.

“We are under attack from criminals who think their greed justifies raping young girls at knifepoint, dealing poison to our youth, or killing just for fun.”

“We are under attack from people who hate us, hate our freedoms, hate our laws, hate our values, hate the way we simply live our lives.”

Since 9/11, approximately 94 people have been killed on US soil by jihadist terrorists — a bit more than the number of Americans killed every single day in gun violence.

“We are under attack from failed states, cyber-terrorists, vicious smugglers, and sadistic radicals.”

Cyber-terrorists have never killed an American citizen, no failed state threatens America and more Americans are killed by lightning strikes than sadistic radicals.

“And we are under attack every single day. The threats are relentless.”

No, they’re not...

Kelly is simply following a path well tread by other snake oil salesmen who’ve misused the authority that comes with public office to scare Americans into supporting bad policies.

Kelly may not be the worst of Trump’s Cabinet picks, but he is definitely the scariest — and his willingness to make comments so utterly divorced from reality and so clearly untrue should embarrass us all.

Kelly did not gel with the previous administration, and his military career ended on a sour note in January 2016 after he repeatedly clashed with the Obama White House.

Officials there had grown tired of the four-star general speaking off message — about the president’s plan to shut down the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, about the perceived vulnerability of America’s borders, about the threat posed to American interests by any number of terrorist organizations. Their relationship had become so strained that in the weeks before he retired, multiple administration officials went to the media and accused Kelly and other military leaders of endeavoring to undermine the Guantánamo closure plan...

He has long argued that transnational organized crime is among the greatest threats to U.S. national security.